Update

Jun 16, 2009

I got an email from one of my OH friends asking how my journey was.  I'm not sure she expected to receive such a long reply!  I decided that I would use most of that reply as a blog post.

Well...I went in for a fill in March and after about a month I went back because I was not able to eat any fruits or veggies and I was having heart burn everyday and I asked for some fluid out.  I had lost some weight initially after the fill but then began to gain again.  The NP and the PA tag teamed me and told me that the band was not working for me and that I should convert to the bypass.  They said I was not too tight at all and the PA seemed really irritated when I insisted that she take fluid out.  I asked her to take 2 cc's out.  She said 'you're not going to lose weight if I take fluid out'  I said I'm not losing weight now and I have heartburn all the time and I can't eat fruits and vegetables.  That's when she told me to convert to the bypass.  I felt totally defeated.  I did get the 2 ccs out and I feel a lot better.  I can still tell I have a band (I think I have about 8 ccs in my band). 

I've been in the middle of a huge transition in my life (leaving my job, moving, returning to school).  The last 2 weeks I've been walking for 30+ minutes several times a week (not quite every day) and I've been focusing on the gabriel method way of eating which what I took from it was when you eat ask yourself where is the progein, where is the live food and where is the omega 3.  I don't do it everytime, but it's a start.  Check out the Gabriel Method on Amazon.  It's worth the read!  It's quite inspriation, certainly not a quick fix, it is more about changing who you are. 

What I have come to realize is that the band helps with not allowing you to eat a lot of food fast.  That, unfortunately, is only a small part of the problem for me.  And so the band only helped a little for me!  I do not think converting to the bypass is the best solution for me either.  I am afraid that I would end up being one of the bypass failures as well (like the guy on Biggest Loser).  There is more to being overweight that the amount of food we eat.  I need to address the emotional eating aspect.  I need to address the exercise aspect.  I need to figure out who I want to be.  I want to be a person who likes to move their body.  I want to be a person who finds a way to deal with emotions rather than eating ice cream or chips (and not just a little either).  So one step at a time.  I'm not back to square one - I'm still down about 30 pounds from where I was when I went for my initial consult almost 2 years ago.  I'm a band failure (in the eyes of my bariatric center) but I am not a failure as a person.  So I'm no longer focused on the band.  I am focused on re-inventing myself (which I wish I had been able to do when I had the surgery, but things happen the way they do).

So that's my story for now!

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